Whilst out on a rowboat with her husband, John, Louise Haloran kills him, and casts his body overboard, telling the family he left on an urgent business trip. Louise's main concern; she can...
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Storyline

Whilst out on a rowboat with her husband, John, Louise Haloran kills him, and casts his body overboard, telling the family he left on an urgent business trip. Louise's main concern; she can only inherit part of his family fortune if he's still alive. The Halorans are a strange family; still grieving over the death of the youngest daughter, Kathleen who'd drowned in a pond when she was a young child. The family hold an annual ceremony of remembrance, on the anniversary of her death. But this year - with John recently deceased, someone is wielding an axe...intent on murder! Written by
garykmcd

Technical Specs

Runtime:

Sound Mix:

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Did You Know?

Trivia

During an interview with Ben Mankiewicz on TCM, Roger Corman stated that while the film's title was originally "Dementia", he discovered that there was another film by the same name, so he wanted to alter it. He thought to himself that the number 13 was typically thought of as a scary number, and "Dementia 13" sounded good. He called up Francis Ford Coppola and asked if he could add something to the script about a character having something bad happen to him at the age of 13 that influenced him to be a killer later in life. This would justify the addition of the number. Coppola agreed to do this. See more »

Goofs

In the movie's latter half Dr. Caleb enters a work shed and discovers the body of Louise and the lifelike Kathleen doll. Carefully picking up the doll, he closes the shed door, and immediately in the next scene is shown walking with the doll in his arms and a cigar in his mouth. See more »

Quotes

Louise Haloran:
It's nice to see her enjoying herself for a change. The mood around this place isn't good for her.... Especially an American girl. You can tell she's been raised on promises.
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Frequently Asked Questions

User Reviews

******SPOILERS****** Early 1960's collaboration of director Francis Ford Coppala and film producer Roger Corman of a horror story set in and around Ireland's Haloran Castle. The movie has really two stories that intersect each other halfway into the movie which sets off a series of brutal ax murders which for the time, the early 1960's, are as graphic as anything seen in films back in those days.

John Haloran, Peter Reed, dies of a sudden heart attack, which seemed self-induced, rowing a boat with his wife Louise, Luana Anders, on board one night. Getting nothing from John's estate if he dies before she does which was stated in John's will Louise frantically tries to hide John's body by throwing him overboard into the lake. Louise ties an anchor to his waist to keep John from floating to the surface and being discovered.

Back home Louise writes a letter attributing it to John stating that he's gone on an urgent business trip to New York and may not be back for some time. Louise then plans to talk John's emotionally unstable mother Lady Haloran, Eithne Dunne, into re-writing the will and include her in it with or without the survival of her husband. The next day John's older brother Richard, William Campball, is set to see his fiancée Kane, Mary Mitchel, who's arriving from the USA to meet Richard's family in Ireland. When Kane is picked up by Richard's younger brother William, Brent Patton, at the airport William tells Kane that tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of their 13 year-old sister Kathleen's, Barbara Downing, tragic death and the family is having it's annual ceremony to commemorate it.

Louise knowing how much Lady Haloran misses her beloved daughter Kathleen tries to manipulate her by trying to prove to her that she's somehow in touch with the dead Kathleen through communications with her from the "other side". This is to get her to like Louise, who Lady Haloran despises, and get her to change the will that she wrote up that left Louise out in the cold if her husband dies in terms of his inheritance. Trying to convince Lady Haloran that she's really in communication with her daughter Louise tries to stage an event by taking some toys from Kathleen's room and planting them at the bottom of the pound where she drowned seven years ago.Louise plans at the right moment to have the toys rise to the surface in Lady Haloran presence to prove, to Lady Haloran, that she's telling her the truth.

What Louise doesn't know, by reviving suppressed memories of Kathleen's death, is that she set off and put into motion the person who was responsible for it to commit a number of bloody ax murders with Louise being his first victim.

Despite a shoe string budget and a unknown cast "Dementia 13" is a pretty effective Horror/Mystery movie.The murderer is more or less reviled almost at the beginning of the film but in such a way to make you not realize it. In a good attempt of misdirection by Francis Ford Coppala the audience is made to look somewhere or at someone else in the movie which keeps you guessing who the killer is until the very end. Coppala's use of striking black and white photography as well as the effective use of sounds and shadows greatly adds to the suspense as well as creepiness of the movie.

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